True Things About Me A Novel (Deborah Kay Davies) by Deborah Kay Davies Read Free Book Online

I hardly know him. I don’t even like him. Mmmm, Alison said. I got up to get more coffee. Now I wanted to go on talking about him.
    Alison was putting on some lipstick when I got back to the table. It was a new colour for her. She seemed to havedecided to shut up about the burning issue. Actually, she said, talking about getting into people’s pants, I’ve been feeling really sexy recently. Tom does as well, so that’s handy. You know how rarely these things synchronise when you’re in a long-term relationship. And having the kids around all the time doesn’t exactly oil the wheels, so to speak. I nodded. Prepare to laugh: he’s developed this mad obsession about whether he matches up, y’know, size wise. I didn’t respond. I was thinking about the wall of the pub, other things. We drank our coffees. I thought you were having a smoothie, Alison said. Yes, I said, but somehow I forgot. And the smoothies seemed so sort of smooth. I suddenly wanted a roughie, do you know what I’m saying? God, yes, she said.
    We went on sipping our drinks. Before I could think of something riveting to say she began to nag me. Tom says you should give this mystery man a wide berth, Alison announced. He says wait for someone steady. Tom says better to be safe than sorry. I put my cup down. How dare you discuss my private life with Tom? I said. What the hell does he know about passion? Tom with his packed lunches and Thermos flask. Bloody Tom with his extensive, colour-coded collection of bloody Simply Red CDs. What does he know? We both stood up. You stupid, stupid girl. You’re having sex with this guy, aren’t you? Alison said, far too loudly. Yes, I am, I said. And do you know what? He’s got the biggest dick I’ve ever seen.

I eat colour coordinated snacks
    I FELT REALLY bad about what I’d said to Alison. She was my one true friend. Somehow, though, it was too hard to make the first move. All weekend I was on my own. I don’t know what I did to pass the time. Lots of grooming. Lots of smoothing and creaming and masking. I can say without exaggeration that my feet looked truly angelic. I tried on the new sandals I’d bought but not worn yet. I gazed at myself for hours, wearing my new things.
    Eventually I realised I just looked stupid. Like a little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes. But not even cute. I folded the new clothes up in the tissue paper, put them in the cupboard, shut the door and left them in the dark with my ruined jacket. I lay on the sofa and ate Wotsits. I watched epic quantities of trash TV: botched cosmetic procedures, thirty-four-stone teenagers, gay blokes overhauling straight blokes, mentally disturbed dogs and their mentally disturbed owners, mad nutritionists who sniffed the poo of obesesecretaries. It was all quite calming. I left a short message on Alison’s home phone.
    I turned the TV off and waited. I hadn’t eaten anything but pseudo cheesy snacks all weekend. I’d drunk nothing but Lucozade. It was a fact that only orange stuff had passed my lips. I went on lying on the sofa and drifted off to sleep. I didn’t hear Alison’s call. The answerphone was blinking when I finally sat up. I dived at it. She sounded just the same, and she called me her little duck egg. I was to go to her house. Tom had taken all the kids over to his mother’s.
    I showered and threw on some clothes. On the way I bought red wine and a roast chicken from her neighbourhood deli. These I offered at the front door. Come here, you daft nit, she said, and hugged me and the chicken at the same time. I told her I was sorry about what I’d said. Tom had every right to his opinion. And that actually, of course, what he said was true. Also, although it was none of my business, I was sure he was more than generously endowed in the family jewel department. Stuff Tom, she said. I should never have quoted him like that. Anybody would think he was the fifth oracle. Well, I said, I did think it a bit strange, when usually